Well done Ian, looking very grand. I know what you mean about the cats house, ours was the same until the door went on.

Looking at your opening design and the curve angle, may be a good idea to buttress these particulary if your putting a chimney on top the stress outwards may be too great.

Your dad at 70 years young is still a para at heart, (always 1st in ) good on him getting stuck in.

Paul

Yes the arch has been butressed now and the chinmey is in place, it is an offset chinmey that is shared with the BBQ which is the other side of the central colum. The chimney load is on the column and the arch is only supporting two terracot chimney tubes.

The outer arch is done and the chimney has now been insulated, the first layer of insulation is now on the dome and I will be starting the main curing fires this weekend.

I have had a lamp on in the dome all week and a hot air blower keeping the air temperature in the dome at a nice warm 50 degrees C to aid drying.

That is one heck of a project you have there, fellow serf. It seems to be coming along quite nicely.

Thanks tractorman it's a labour of love as I guess they all are mine is just on a grander scale as it involves buildings as well as the WFO. I'm looking forward to a nice cold beer with the first pizza that comes out of it.

The front arch has now been built and buttressed and the chimney flue is fitted as well.

The oven and chimney flue have been wrapped in insulation and I have started the curing fires. I am using the new guidelines and starting small fires, holding the dome at temperature all day and then closing the door and allowing it to cool back down over night.

Attached to this post are pics of the flue, insulation and first curing fire

The curing fires are going well, we move on to the 500 degree F one tomorrow. In the mean time we have been making good use of the useable heat in the oven created with the curing fires to bake our first bread in there.

As he did a such a good job of cleaning the inside of the oven my dad (70 years old) got the privilege of baking the first bread in the oven and it tastes amazing.

Finished the perlcrete insulation on the oven today as well so the hotter fires should be easier to achieve.

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